As March heats up, once elite IU basketball fades into background — again

CHICAGO – IU will play in the NIT, if invited. That’s both a statement of fact, and also quite telling of Indiana’s current position.

For the past three seasons, the most relevant questions surrounding the Hoosiers during college basketball’s most important month have been whether they would be willing to appear in the sport’s secondary postseason tournament if called upon, and whether they would be willing to do so at home.

Indiana botched its last chance to make a strong case to the NCAA tournament selection committee. The Hoosiers started slow in their Thursday meeting with Ohio State in the Big Ten tournament, fell behind by 20, rallied furiously and lost.

Now, they’re 17-15, and they’ll have to wait until Sunday to see if that committee favors their wins, ignores their losses, sympathizes with their injuries and extends them an at-large bid.

Indiana's Aljami Durham (1) rears as he walks off the court during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against the Ohio State in the second round of the Big Ten Conference tournament, Thursday, March 14, 2019, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)(Photo: Kiichiro Sato, AP)

It’s far more likely the NCAA tournament selection committee passes on Indiana for the third year in a row and the seventh time in the last 11 years.

In that case, it will have been 18 years next season since the program’s last Final Four appearance, and 33 years since its last NCAA title.

The Hoosiers have lost their first game in the Big Ten tournament in 10 of the last 15 seasons. They’ve won four games in this event in the last decade.

Over the past 20 seasons, IU is sixth in the Big Ten in win percentage in conference games, and sixth in the league in win percentage overall. One or two more years of high-level success under John Beilein in Ann Arbor, and Michigan will push the Hoosiers down to seventh.

What does any of that have to do with Thursday’s loss? Not a lot. It’s just one more defeat woven into the broader tapestry of a once nationally elite program struggling to regain anything resembling its old footing in its own conference, much less across the country.

Archie Miller is the man tasked with that tall job. He’s not the first. If he doesn’t succeed, he won’t be the last.

But Indiana will keep pushing for a return to college basketball’s most exclusive table until one of two things happens: Either the Hoosiers get there, or IU’s booster base, far enough removed from the glory days to no longer remember them, stops demanding the program bring them back.

This season wasn’t supposed to be the year that restored all of that, but at the start — in particular when Romeo Langford picked Indiana and Juwan Morgan withdrew from the NBA draft — it looked like a potentially positive step.

No honest, realistic fans were calling Langford a savior in the preseason. But they were rightly hopeful that between Langford, Morgan and a young-but-talented roster, IU might have a real shot at ending a two-year NCAA tournament drought and setting the program on course toward more consistent success.

That hope was fueled in November and December by a 12-2 start, by big wins over Marquette, Louisville and Butler, by Langford’s silky offensive game, Morgan’s dogged determination and a young roster overcoming a rash of unfortunate injuries to win 12 of its first 14 games.

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Then the bottom fell out in January, was slowly rebuilt in February and looked sturdy enough to hoist an unexpectedly renewed NCAA tournament push in March.

Thursday’s loss was the wall into which that push slammed, loudly and disastrously. Indiana reverted to its worst instincts — poor shot selection, careless turnovers, long stretches of disconnected, disengaged possessions. A late comeback couldn’t save Miller’s team.

IU could have used Ohio State as a platform to make a final case to the selection committee. Instead, Indiana got used.

How often has that been the case in the past 20 years? How often has Indiana’s name, and the specter of what Indiana once was, outpaced its reality?

It’s not Archie Miller’s fault the Hoosiers are in this position, at least not entirely, but it’s his job to pull them out of it. It’s not Fred Glass’ fault either, at least not entirely, but as steward of Indiana’s athletic department, it’s his job to make Miller’s job as straightforward as possible.

This season will have gone so dramatically off script (after that promising start) for a number of reasons.

Youth was inevitable after Miller lost three players to the NBA draft and five seniors to graduation in his first 12 months on the job. Many, if not most, of this season’s injuries have been bad breaks at terrible times. The worst of the Hoosiers’ depth problems came during the most difficult portion of their schedule.

But this team and its coaching staff never seemed to settle on the best ways to maximize Langford’s talent. Too many veterans were inconsistent even when healthy. IU has somehow managed to shoot more poorly from behind the arc than it did last year, when it hit what was then a program low for single-season 3-point shooting.

Opportunities were missed. Indiana lost a string of games on tough or fluky shots in February. Turn two or three of those around, and this is a tournament team, but Miller himself has lamented the Hoosiers’ inability to make their own luck this season.

Thursday was one more window, one more chance. Indiana came out flat, played from behind virtually the entire afternoon and lost what was widely considered an elimination game on the NCAA tournament bubble.